


Deep Death Waits

by centrumLumina (centreoftheselights)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F, Humanstuck, Post-Apocalypse, Zombie Apocalypse, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-11
Updated: 2012-07-11
Packaged: 2017-11-09 15:24:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/457006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/centreoftheselights/pseuds/centrumLumina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As the Dead walk the Earth, the survivors have strict rules to follow – but Rose Lalonde wants to change the game.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Deep Death Waits

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Team Aradia<3Rose in the Homestuck Shipping Olympics 2012.
> 
> Round 2, prompt "Monsters: incorporate supernatural creatures into your entry."

There are rules.

No-one was ever told about them, but they help. They make things easier.

Don’t go outside, unless you have to.

Only use the Thorns in an emergency.

Don’t let them get close enough to touch you.

Most of all, don’t look at them too long. Don’t notice that this one is horrifically far gone, or that one is painfully fresh. Don’t wonder if he once passed you on the way to work, or if she once stood beside you in a store. Don’t ask who they used to be, as Dave or Karkat slashes a blade towards their neck.

Rose Lalonde was never one for following the rules.

“Stand back, boys.”

They don’t hear her over the melee, the sounds of steel splitting skin.

“How the Earthfucking Christ are there so many of them?” Karkat shouts.

“No big mystery, Vantas. Even the Dead can’t get enough of my patented Strider swa–holy shit Lalonde.”

Dave turns just as Rose aims the needles. When he catches sight of her, he dives at Karkat, pulling them both down. Rose, her companions safely on the floor, fires.

The beam of ultrasound strikes its target dead centre. For a moment, the Dead’s blank white eyeballs flash dark with blood, before its eyelids, turned dull gray by the virus, slam shut. By the time it hits the ground, Rose has fired again, and again, until all the Dead have crumpled.

“You needn’t be so concerned, Dave. I am perfectly capable of aiming.”

Dave gets to his feet quickly, sheathing his sword.

“Was that really fucking necessary?” Karkat asks.

Dave turns his head towards Rose for a moment, and she knows in spite of the darkened glass that he is meeting her eyes. She also knows the words he is considering saying, just as he knows the points she would make in return.

Neither speaks.

“Seriously, what the hell are two dozen blankeyes doing out for a stroll on this side of town? And Strider, if you say one word about your mythical ‘swag,’ I swear to Pluto and back, the next time we walk into a deathshitting ambush I will walk away and let them Turn you.”

Dave’s head flicks back to Karkat. “Don’t be jealous of the swag, sweetcheeks. Sooner or later, one of them would have settled for chowing down on your pretty little face.”

Karkat snaps back another insult, and Rose watches as the pair of them retrieve dropped supplies from among the stunned corpses littering the tarmac. The words are sharp, but for now their weapons are stowed. The skirmish has been won.

It is time to return to base.

 

As they approach Meteor Labs, Rose performs her usual mental check of their situation.

Absent: the sound of screams, the smell of blood, hordes of gray-skinned monsters intent on cannibalism and destruction.

Present: Dave Strider. The brother Rose had never known she needed. The only one she had known Before. Swordsman, musician, and comedian. Currently broadcasting his disapproval with the slightest tilt of one eyebrow.

Present: Karkat Vantas. Former employee of the lab. Swordsman, scriptwriter and blasphemer. Willing and able to provide Dave some competition for the title of best fighter. Willing to compete with Dave for just about anything.

Leaving: Karkat Vantas. Most likely in search of Gamzee, a boy Rose has always known as brittle. Where the rest of them hardened when the virus hit, Gamzee broke. Nothing yet has convinced Karkat he cannot be fixed.

Appearing: Terezi Pyrope – swordswoman, artist and lawyer. Walking unerringly towards Dave, greeting him enthusiastically. Blind since Before.

Following her: the man known as Mayor. Gathering cans of food for the store he maintains. Mute since the night he had arrived, badly injured, on their doorstep.

Returning to the storeroom: Mayor, followed by Terezi and Dave.

“Another successful mission, I take it?”

Rising from her seat: Kanaya Maryam. Elegant, radiant, never seeming to sleep. Glancing towards the Thorns. Question, unasked: you used them?

Returned to their box without comment: the Thorns of Oglogoth. Proudest achievement of one Eridan Ampora, a breakthrough made on the same day he was Turned, taking out the Lab’s Head of Research before Kanaya severed his spine with a chainsaw.

Standing before Rose now: Kanaya. Gesturing towards the table: Kanaya. Smiling just slightly: Kanaya.

“Care to join me?”

And now, considering: Rose Lalonde. Blonde-haired and lilac-eyed. Tactician, novelist and risktaker. At nineteen, a leader in the absence of any willing alternative. At this moment, filled with a curious certainty of foresight.

“Some other time, perhaps.”

Tonight, she will come. Rose is sure of it.

 

By the time Rose reaches the roof, the sun has already set. She does not have to wait long in the gray half-light before a figure appears.

Even from a distance, what approaches is a contradiction. Her skin is a deathly monochrome, but her pupils are sharp within red-brown irises. She does not attack Rose, but rather stands beside her, folding her arms and pursing her lips.

“You need to stop taking risks like that.”

Rose smiles. “It’s good to see you too, Aradia.”

“What were you even doing that far south? Why didn’t you tell me you were planning to –”

Rose lifts a hand to cut her off. “If I had told you, you would have insisted on trying to talk me out of it.”

“Did it ever occur to you that there’s a reason for that?” Aradia glares at her. “And the Thorns, Rose. We don’t even know how they work.”

“But they _do_ work.”

“You have no idea what side effects they could have! Dave and Karkat were handling things.” Aradia’s expression softens. “It’s only one more year.”

“And five months. _If_ the simulation holds.” Rose allows her lips to curve upwards, turning the words into a joke. “How is Sollux?”

“As well as can be expected.”

Sollux Captor had fought the Infection longer than Rose would have thought possible, struggling to finish a simulation of the outbreak. The first time Rose had seen Aradia had been the evening she had appeared out of the darkness to carry the half-Turned programmer safely into the night.

That had been sixteen months ago now. The Dead rarely lasted eighteen before they truly died, the virus rotting them away from the inside out.

Rose sometimes wonders if the simulation’s answer had been worth it. Three years, it had told them – three years until the virus ran its course, until the living outnumbered the Dead.

Until then, this world was theirs.

Aradia sighs, and reaches into her satchel for a sheaf of papers. “Some more for you.”

Rose sets them down beside her. “Anything interesting?”

“They’re all interesting. In their own way.”

That is, theirs and Aradia’s. Dead enough to walk among them without fear, but cured of their hunger for the living, Aradia was free to go where she wished, to counsel both army and besieged. She was Persephone in midwinter, a goddess in the land of shades.

“I suppose.” Rose’s voice is flat. “It seems wearing, sometimes. Collecting the memoirs of the Dead.”

“I always loved history,” Aradia shrugs. “And you’ll need their memories – in a year and five months.”

“I –”

Rose does not say “I wish you could come inside.” They both know it to be true, and they both know why she will not. Besides, she doesn’t need to hear Aradia say “I wish you could leave with me.”

“I hate waiting,” she settles on instead.

Aradia nods. “You’ll live.”

Rose steps forward. Unexpectedly, Aradia stands her ground, and they are suddenly close, far closer than Rose normally permits herself to be.

So many rules, but breaking them is only another way to reshape the game. Only one rule really matters: don’t let the Dead bite you. Once you come into contact with their saliva, teeming with the virus – once you are Infected, it’s game over. Dead man walking.

Rose takes another step forward. She has never been one for rules.

“Rose.” Aradia’s tone is full of warning, but she does not move back. Rose moves towards her again, leaning closer. Aradia’s lips brush against hers as she speaks again.

“Rose. I’m not going to be your kiss of Death.”

Rose breathes deep for a second before stepping back.

“That wasn’t the plan.” A hand moves to her pocket, and she thrusts something towards Aradia – a thin vial, containing a trickle of something pale.

Aradia’s eyes open wide, and she goes still.

“Where did you get this?”

Rose lets in a hiss of breath. “So this _is_ it. The formula they used on you.”

“It could be.” Aradia’s hand is shaking slightly. “How long have you -?”

“A few months.”

Aradia’s fingers curl around the glass, and the shaking stops. “It could be anything. We don’t know what it could do –”

“We know precisely what it _could_ do,” Rose corrects. A magic potion and a kiss, and Rose is brought back from the Dead, and the goddess is no longer alone...

Aradia shakes her head. “Even if it worked it – Rose, you don’t want to go down that path. It wasn’t _fun_.”

“I know.”

“And what about afterwards?” Aradia continues as if she did not hear. “Seventeen months. There’s going to be a new world. And I... I belong in this one.”

“I don’t believe that.”

Rose has always had difficulty picturing a future without seeing Aradia, smiling in sunlight. How could the springtime return without Persephone?

Aradia’s expression is cold. “You should.”

“I’m sure you realise that all this has already occurred to me.” Rose’s eyes dart across Aradia’s features, her eyes, her mouth. “Perhaps I have judged the reward to be worth the risks.”

Aradia laughs, high and sharp. “So you really intend to disappear in the middle of the night? To leave them all behind?”

“They’ll _live_.” The bitterness in Rose’s voice surprises even herself.

Aradia gazes steadily into her eyes.

“Even Dave?”

Aradia takes Rose’s hand, pressing the vial into her palm.

For several long seconds, they stare at each other. It is Rose who blinks first, thrusting the vial back into her pocket without a word. Then she steps back, looks away.

“How’s Kanaya?”

The words are intended to wound, but Rose does not flinch.

“She continues to assist me with the book.” Guiltily, Rose tries not to remember gentle jokes, poised touches, an elegantly curved smile.

“Good!” Aradia’s smile is suddenly too wide. “You should have someone you enjoy working with.”

“I’m sure she will continue to be – helpful,” Rose admits. “At least, for as long as I continue writing.”

Aradia moves to stand beside Rose. Their shoulders press against one another, too gently to apply force.

“There will be other worlds,” Aradia says.

“In seventeen months.”

“Precisely.”

Rose is sure Aradia is smiling, although she cannot see her face. She hesitates, searching for the right words, some poetry to express her true motivations.

Although Rose craves the underworld, some part of her seeks only its queen.

“Aradia...” She sighs. “I never used to be lost for words.”

Their fingers brush together, but Rose does not turn to look at her.

“It’s okay,” Aradia tells her.

“Perhaps.”

 

A few days later, Rose leads another supply run into town. They stick to the north side, and the Thorns are left safely in their box in the lab.

Rose Lalonde has never been one for rules. But for now, she’ll play the game.


End file.
